Biometric authentication utilizes physical characteristics or traits (biometrics) of the human body to identify the user. One commonly used technique is to capture a digital fingerprint or fingerprint scan and to compare the digital fingerprint against a previously recorded sample of the digital fingerprint. There exist, unfortunately, various techniques for defeating a fingerprint authentication system by presenting a copy of the fingerprint image to the scanner. It is thus highly desirable to provide an improved fingerprint scanning technique.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.